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I’m a big fan of carbon fiber, which is probably why I’m a big fan of the Maserati MC Sport Line, a program that basically allows you to add on a bunch of neat little carbon fiber bits and pieces to your already attractive Maserati GranTurismo.

According to Maserati, the MC Sport Line “is designed to enhance the sporty DNA of Maseratis for those customers who like to express their passion for racing through dynamic styling and a choice of technical solutions that increase driving fun without compromise.”

If you’re wondering about the name, MC stands for Maserati Corse, which is Maserati’s motor racing division, and the inspiration behind the MC Sport Line. Their hope is that with the MC Sport Line, Maserati can start to bring some of their on-track experience to the streets.

Initial products to get the benefit of some carbon fiber love include new front and rear spoilers, side skirts, mirror housings and door handles, door panels, dashboard, central tunnel, steering wheel rim, paddle shifts and the instrument panel.

Under all that carbon fiber, customers can also order up new rims, stiffer springs, shock absorbers and anti-roll bars, as well as a specific Maserati Stability Program that is designed to give the driver more freedom before kicking in the nanny.

If you’re in the market for a Maserati, each one of these pieces will be available individually, so it’s really a matter of taste, but if your tastes have the wallet to back it up, you can now have your GranTurismo delivered with all the carbon fiber a driver could ever need.

Sure, your Prius gets 45+ MPG when it’s rolling down the freeway doing 55 in the slow lane, but does it get looks from fellow motorists?

No, unless you’re head’s on fire and there’s a unicorn sitting next to you, then you probably don’t get looks like the Prius you see here does.

This Prius, customized by a crew from Classe’s Garage, is what happens when you dump over $180k into a car and film the process along the way. (The car was made for Sweden’s TV4, which wanted to do a show about ‘building a custom car’.)

Everything you see here (except for the chrome trim on the grill) has been smoothed, stretched, widened, waxed, painted, polished, and pampered to the limits of what most automotive enthusiasts, let along Prius owners, ever thought possible.

To get the body looking right, a wide-body kit from an XC90 Volvo was grafted on. The back doors were smoothed over, the fronts were given a scissor style opening, and the rear windows were reshaped, and the back window was scrapped all together.

A carbon fiber wind splitter sits under the front bumper, as do wind splitters under the doorsills, and a rear venturi made entirely from the stuff sits out back. Air suspension keeps all four corners planted, and the stock rims have been swapped out for 20-inch replacements, including an over-sized brake kit for extra stopping goodness.

Don’t think they stopped there though. The interior had to match the exterior, so a fully custom dashboard was crafted, along with a custom center console to house the 4,400-watt stereo (five subs, eight speakers, a 15 inch LCD, a tablet PC with internet access, and a quarter mile of cable). Racing seats keep anyone brave enough to get behind the wheel firmly in place, and everything was covered in orange, black and red so the colorblind won’t miss it.

Think you’ve got what it takes to roll around in the world’s most pimped green mobile?

Last night I took the plunge and upgraded to WordPress 2.5, and so far, everything has been working as expected.

The install took about 5 minutes (not accounting for the back-up time) and went without a hitch. All of my plug-ins seem to be chugging along fine, and I haven’t noticed any drastic changes to the front of the scenes look of the site.

Behind the scenes is where most of WP 2.5’s changes occurred though, so I guess that’s to be expected. The whole interface was revamped, and changes include:

Multi-file uploading

One-click plugin upgrades

Built-in galleries

Customizable dashboard

Salted passwords and cookie encryption

Media library

A WYSIWYG that doesn’t mess with your code

Concurrent post editing protection

Full-screen writing

Search that covers posts and pages

Let me know if you see anything go wonky in the next few days, but if you’re looking to make the switch/upgrade to WordPress 2.5, I give it two thumbs up.